Social Design on a Spectrum:

Susan Yelavich

Susan Yelavich Parsons School of Design, New York https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8729-4782

Keywords: Social, Power, Senses, Materiality

Abstract

When Dilnot’s essay “The Gift” was written in 1993, “gift” was not the problematic word it has become today. Gift now carries the burden of hierarchy. Given the growing awareness of the negative potential of this imbalance, contemporary social design has evolved from empowering people with things, to facilitating a social process, to setting up conditions for debate in which the designer relinquishes her authorship altogether. This paper will explore that trajectory and conclude with a case study that blurs the (artificially drawn) lines among the three models just sketched. The case study will look at the work and ethos of Milan-based, Calabrian-born designer Anna Barbara. Anna Barbara’s practice reflects the ethos that Clive Dilnot evokes in his essay “The Gift,” but with none of the hubris that gift-giving often implies. Her work supports and gives presence to the initiatives of others and shows that it is problematic to assume that methodologies associated with the notion of giving are obsolete or undemocratic.

Author Biography

Susan Yelavich, Parsons School of Design, New York

Susan Yelavich is a design scholar, curator, writer, and craftsperson whose research interests include textiles, architecture, literature, and design. She is Professor Emerita of Design Studies at Parsons School of Design, the New School. She is also a member of Scientific Committee for Design at the Politecnico di Milano. Her contributions to design and its scholarship span over four decades, including 25 years at Cooper Hewitt Museum. Yelavich is the author of numerous articles and books, including Thinking Design through Literature (Routledge, 2019); Design as Future-Making with Barbara Adams (Bloomsbury, 2014); Contemporary World Interiors (Phaidon, 2007); Pentagram/Profile (Phaidon, 2004); Inside Design Now (Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian, 2003); Design for Life (Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian, 1997); and The Edge of the Millennium: An International Critique of Architecture, Urban Planning, Product and Communication Design (Whitney Library of Design, 1993). She is a Fellow of the Bogliasco Foundation (2018) and the American Academy in Rome (2004).

Social Design on a Spectrum

With Case Study of Anna Barbara’s Ethos of Care

Abstract

Author Biography